


Rebirth

by lessthankind



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Blood, Codependency, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Graphic Description, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lessthankind/pseuds/lessthankind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan returns home after the Miskatonic Massacre and wonders about the fate of Herbert West.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I wrote after seeing Re-Animator for the first time.

Dan sat in the empty house, completely covered in blood. Meg was dead. She'd stay dead this time. He'd made sure of it, smashed her skull six ways to Sunday.

He wanted to throw up but he hadn't eaten since... hell, since that sandwich Herbert had made for him. Dry heaves only lasted so long.

He could probably take a shower. He should probably take a shower. He had old blood from reanimated corpses and fresh blood from new ones all over him, and yet he couldn't bring himself to rise out of the tattered old armchair and make his way to the bathroom.

He wondered if Herbert was dead.

Something unknown clenched at his chest, vice-like, the hands of the undead around his heart. If Herbert was dead, then that meant Dan was the last, the only one left who knew the truth. Again, he wanted to throw up.

A thought struck him, would the police suspect him? Were they coming to his door now, to arrest him for untold horrors? Or simply the murder of his girlfriend, or his roommate, or a myriad of other things he could be arrested for?

God, what a sick life he was leading. But it could have been, should have all been worth it. A light entered Dan's eyes again. He sat up. Dr. Hill had been completely cognizant of what he was doing. He'd formed his own plans, working on more than animal instinct. He could speak and articulate and control his body whilst separated.

All of these things filled Dan with an indescribable hope. Then he thought again of Meg and the small flame of hope was blown out.

It didn't matter, anyway. Though he'd dragged the heavy bag full of reagent and Herbert's notes back to the house with him, Dan knew he could make neither head nor tail of them. He'd never been much of a chemist. He knew what he needed to know as a medical doctor, but the sort of experiments West and his mentor Gruber had gotten up to were completely foreign to him. If he'd had the energy he might have tossed papers about the room like a child having a tantrum but as it was he'd just replaced them back into the pack and sat in the chair. He hadn't moved since.

There was a long moment wherein nothing at all happened and Dan didn't think about anything at all.

And then the door opened.

“Dan.”

Dan's eyes wouldn't focus, the figure in the doorway too back lit, but the voice was unmistakeable. He leaped to his feet.

“God, Herbert, Herbert, you're alive!” He went to his friend's side. Herbert was in a worse state than Dan, his clothes torn, his jacket missing, blood covering him, his own and Dr. Hill's, his face a mottled bruise where the intestine had done its horrible work, one lens of his glasses shattered beyond repair. Dan helped him into the living room and set him in the armchair he had just vacated.

“Let me call an ambulance.”

“No,” Herbert barked, voice harsh from being strangled. “I've just crawled my way from the hospital, what idiotic notion makes you think I'd want to go back?”

“What can I do?”

“Just. Just.” Herbert couldn't seem to form the words, grasping with long, pale fingers, digging into Dan's skin. Dan let out a gasp, grasped back. “Dan, I think I died.”

“What are you talking about?” Dan muttered, busy checking his friend for wounds. Herbert breathed harshly, dug his short nails into Dan's arm. “Ow!”

“Dan, I think I died. The, the, the air, and his intestine, I couldn't breathe, damn it, damn it, I can't breathe! I need, please, Dan, I need,” he reached for the bag on the floor and Dan dropped his arm, disgusted.

“You need your drug? Well, too damn bad, Herbert, I'm pretty sure this is the pure stuff, not that diluted mess you pump yourself with.” Dan shook his head, stood, scratched through his dirty brown hair, getting dirt and caked blood under his nails.

“Just give it to me, Dan, or I swear I will kill you!” Dan laughed bitterly, shook his head again, grabbed the bag.

“I'm your minion, Doctor West, you say jump, I say how high, just call me Igor,” he muttered as he measured the correct dosage. “If this kills you I will kill you,” he imitated.

A manic laugh bubbled from Herbert as he made his arm ready. “I really think—come on, hurry up, you oaf—I've done it, Dan. I was dead—ow, no, lower—I was braindead, and I came back! I think my diluted injections, they've had a stronger effect than I intended. This is brilliant—ahh!” He jolted up, orgasmic sounds echoing in the empty house. Dan felt heat rush to his face in a repeat of the previous time he'd done this for the smaller man. Herbert really got off on this. “Yes,” Herbert hissed, falling back against the chair with a contented face.

“Herbert, what are you talking about? Your injections, they've, what, managed to keep you from dying?” Dan sounded disbelieving but in actuality it wasn't that far-fetched, considering some of the things he'd seen recently. Herbert met Dan's doubtful face with bright hazel eyes.

“I've cheated death, Dan. There's nothing I cannot do.”

Dan wanted to laugh but he felt that the statement Herbert had made shouldn't have been punctuated with mockery. If it was true, it was too amazing and horrible and wonderful to destroy. And the two of them, staring at each other, inches away, breathing the same air, were the only ones on Earth who knew the truth. That death was not the end.

And Dan thought once more of Meg.

“Meg's dead,” he said, looking Herbert in the eyes. Herbert blinked slowly, Dan would have said alluringly if it had been someone other than Herbert West, but the blink was slow and easy and Herbert's eyelashes were very long, brushing his cheeks.

“Yes, so I figured.”

“I tried to... the reagent...” Dan stumbled over his words, concentrated instead on the bow of Herbert's lips as he spoke.

“It's obvious her will to live wasn't strong enough,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“Don't ever say anything like that again,” Dan warned, his mouth flush against the hot skin of Herbert's neck. Herbert shuddered, leaned into it.

“What are you doing?” he asked without malice, a haze from his injection suffusing him.

“I thought I'd lost you, Herbert, I thought I'd lost you,” Dan repeated.

“Ah, a great loss I would be, no doubt,” Herbert replied, almost without the hint of sarcasm that would make his words humorous. Dan laughed anyway, soft puffs into the hollow of Herbert's neck.

“You and I are the only ones who know about it.”

“And that makes me prey for your sexual addiction? You really ought to get looked at, Mr. Cain. People will talk.” Herbert snapped to k off the end of the last word straight into Dan's ear, lips worrying the shell.

A moment of soft breath and warm skin, slick with saliva and cracking with dried blood, and Herbert spoke again.

“What do you want from me?” He was looking into Dan's eyes, hooded and blown with a desire that had hardly been acknowledged before this moment, a match for West's own. “This is going to change everything,” he warned.

“It's not going to change as much as it probably should.”

“I'm sure you blame me for that.”

“Only mostly.”

It took them a very long time to actually meet, lip on lip, a light kiss, a deeper kiss, a hungry kiss. Herbert was very tactile but not very experienced. Dan taught him as they went and Herbert was a very quick study.

“Dan,” Herbert repeated. Dan said nothing.

It didn't take long, and both of them were too tired to be disappointed, too filthy to strip down. They went together to the small shower and washed together.

It was a benediction, a rebirth, and both of them were quiet, for once.


End file.
